


Cold Soup

by tinyace



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Christmas Drabbles, Gen, Trigger Warning: PTSD / trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 16:57:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2819486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinyace/pseuds/tinyace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>December 1945 – Carmilla still struggles a lot with her PTSD. At night she finds a shivering boy in an alley. In a moment of sympathy she decides to help the ill child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Soup

A giant black silhouette raced through the cold December night. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop. _Faster. Faster!_ She commanded herself. _What was wrong with her?_ She used to run twice as fast. Since she got out of that coffin her body simply rejected to go any faster. Suddenly, a girl with a mole appeared in her vision. _You monster!_ No-no-no, not again! She tried to shake off the memory. _Leave me alone, Ell!_ _Leave me -_ She missed the jump. She stretched out her claws to grab the next roof, but it was too late. She shrieked as her body hit the ground.

 

Mircalla lied flat on her stomach. Without realising she had shifted back to her human form. The fall probably would’ve heavily injured anybody else, but that didn’t mean the fall didn’t hurt as a vampire. She lifted her head to see where she had landed. It was just an alley. With her sharp eyesight she picked up a subtly movement in the alley. She quickly got on her feet, which made her stomach ache. She put her hand over her chest and walked slowly towards it. Every step felt like a stab in her body. But she was fairly certain it was a human sitting in that corner. She hadn’t drunk blood for days now and she could feel her physical strength weaken. When she came closer she saw it was just a boy. Quite possibly not even eight years old. He looked very ill and was shivering. The boy didn’t even react when Mircalla stood right in front of him. She crouched down to meet his eye-level. They stared blankly back at her. He looked dead before he had even died. Mircalla understood that helplessness.

“Hey” she said softly. “How are you?”

It was a stupid question, but she didn’t know what else to say. The boy didn’t reply. Maybe she had spoken in the wrong language. Since she got out of her punishment she mostly had been living in the wild. But always close to a town in case she needed a snack. She didn’t have any money, because Mother always took care of that. Without money she didn’t have a place to stay either and she didn’t feel like working. There was also this lingering fear that if she stayed too long in one place her Mother would find her. So she had been travelling a lot, without really knowing which borders she passed. Countries were temporary anyway. Borders were just cultural and political dividing lines that had no real value. Although she did know she had to be somewhere on the west side of Europe. She tried a few different languages.

“Comment ça va? Alles oké? Alles in Ordnung?”

His eyes twitched at the last one.

“Verstehst du mich?”

She thought she saw a slight nod. Immediately she yanked off her coat and put it gently over the shivering boy. The only reason she had a coat anyway was because it made her appear human in this terrible winter.

“Nehm meine Jacke.”

The child didn’t seem to reply anytime soon. But since he didn’t seem to be repulsive by her either she thought she could help him out. Somebody had to, right? The war was over. He had survived last winter, which was one of the coldest winters even she had ever experienced. He couldn’t be dying now. Where was his family? Why didn’t a shelter or hospital take him in? Were they full for the day? Was it because he was too ill? Because he was possibly contagious and would just make other patients sick? That was outrageous! She had seen so many people on the street the last few years, but this was a child! You couldn’t let someone just die on the street.

“Ich werde dir etwas zu essen bringen”, she said firmly.

There was a forest nearby. Since it still was night she could hunt for a deer maybe. At least something that had meat on it. She stood up and walked out of town before she shifted back into a cat again.

 

The hunt went not as successful as planned. Her stomach still ached from time to time and game was hard to find, since most animals were in hibernation. On top of that it even started snowing. At first it were just a few snowflakes slowly falling from the sky. She had to hunt quicker. Maybe step down on the idea of a deer a little bit. A rabbit or squirrel would be sufficient. Her vision got fuzzier and she started panting. She ignored it and kept on running. She simply couldn’t return empty-handed.

It snowed heavier and it started to become an obstacle. Not only in her view. It felt the same as the blood dripping on her body in the coffin. Her sight was a mix of the dark night and the big white snowflakes. A little girl in a white nightdress appeared through the shifting trees. _Ell?_

It’s not her! You are hallucinating! She said to herself. Keep on running! Mircalla, don’t! _You monster!_ No I _-. Know I do this out of love, sweetheart. Please stop! You are so mysterious, Mircalla. That cockroach can never love you for what you truly are; I am the only one who can understand you. I am a monster. No, darling. You are a diamond. Leave me alone! You may waste away your long centuries in the dark. MAMAN NO! Stop it. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? STOP IT!_

“STOP IT!” she screamed as her body crashed into a tree. The sound echoed through the forest. The cat had shifted back into the girl again. She clutched her legs to her chest and tears were running down her face. She wasn’t cold, yet her body was shivering.

 

She didn’t know how long she had lain there, though the sun was getting up. The weather had calmed down and it was only slightly snowing now. What was the point of it all? If she couldn’t even catch a rabbit what useless vampire she must be. Suddenly she remembered she had a few stolen ration cards in her pocket. It wasn’t much, but it wouldn’t make her a complete failure either. She stood up and had to stretch. Her spine hurt from the crash and she saw she had made a pretty big crack in the tree. There were visible bruises and scars on her body as well, which never happened unless she hadn’t drunk blood for a while. She had to get her strength back as soon as possible. Using her vampire speed would take too much energy now and she really didn’t want to transform into a black cat again after what happened. So she had to walk her way back to the village instead.

 

There was already a long queue line when she arrived. She had grabbed a bowl somewhere, because you had to bring your own. She slowly shuffled her way to the only possible food source she could manage to get. She felt like such a failure. The constant weird looks she got from the other people in the line, wasn’t making it any better.

The man in front of her even turned around at one point.

“Haben Sie keine Jacke?”

“Gestohlen”, she replied bluntly.

She really didn’t feel like talking. It sounded believable as well, because she looked pretty rough. As if she had been in a physical fight. The scars would heal once she would take care of herself again. Take the actual and only proteins she needed as a vampire. But right now she wasn’t the one that should be taken care of.

Once she finally got to the front of the line there was a giant kettle and an officer took her bowl. A disgusting looking liquid was put into it and was pushed back into her hands. It was highly arguable that this soup was even edible, but what bugged her the most was that there wasn’t even steam coming from it. She slowly lifted her head again and looked the officer straight in the eyes.

“Diese Suppe ist kalt.” Her voice trembled of anger.

The man shrugged and signed that she had to move along. She walked outside the building, her body completely tense. In these cold days they couldn’t even serve a warm meal. Maybe she could heat it up herself, but she had no idea how or if she even had to strength to combust fire. As long as the boy ate something it would be sufficient, right? She tried to heat the soup with her breath. Get him to the nearest hospital and let him be treated there.

 

As she walked into the alley she saw a big pile of snow in the corner. Her eyes widened and she ran towards it. She shoved away the snow and saw the boy. His body grey and his eyes closed.

“No, no, no, no, NO!” she yelled and put two fingers on his neck to find a pulse. Nothing. She covered her mouth with one hand and the other was still holding the bowl of cold soup. She shut her eyes, but tears fell out of it anyway.

“Ich hab’ dir Suppe gebracht!”

She couldn’t even feed a dying child. She failed at the simplest tasks. Made all the wrong choices. Snowflakes were falling into the soup. There were worst things than dying, right? Suffering before you died must be worst, right? _Right?_ Maybe it was better if – If a child couldn’t even survive then why would she be able to?

“You useless imbecile!” she shouted.

She smashed the bowl into the wall. It shattered into pieces. She pressed her hands into the snow and made them to fists. Clutched it until it became water in her hands.  Her tears fell into the fluffy white snow. Soup slowly dribbled off the wall. She never even knew his name.

**Author's Note:**

> \- English isn’t my native language. Neither is German by the way. (I may or may not have a huge weakness for Carmilla speaking German). If I made any mistakes in either languages please message me!  
> \- I decided to only post a few of my Carmilla Christmas Drabbles on AO3. If you want to read the rest of my fics I’ll redirect you to [my blog](http://bannedfromzoos.tumblr.com/tagged/12-Days-of-Carmilla)


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